Say Anything Blog

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, who is facing a challenge from Republican Duane Sand this campaign season, is found of telling North Dakotans how much clout he has in Washington DC.  His campaign website says, “As the only member of the House of Representatives with both a seat on the Ways and Means Committee and Agriculture Committee, Earl is in a strong position to put North Dakota producers.” During past campaigns he has talked about how his “seniority” in Washington DC gives him an advantage.

While it’s true that Pomeroy certainly has a lot of years in Washington DC under his belt, the truth his that the amount of clout he has is marginal at best thanks mostly to the fact that he receives more support from people who aren’t North Dakotans than from people who are.  Case in point: The current battle over the farm bill.

A recent Associated Press article details how the farm bill has, thanks to fighting over tax provisions, ended up in front of the Ways and Means Committee chaired by Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.

The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate agriculture committees, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, have lost control of the legislation as tax packages were added to both bills to help pay for them and win votes.

That has brought into the mix House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel, who represents few farmers in his New York City district. He and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., are charged with finding an extra $10 billion for the bill but have agreed on very little.

At a farm bill meeting in Rangel’s office Thursday, shouting could be heard behind closed doors. Several senators, including Baucus, left angrily.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t good,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said afterward.

Now, Pomeroy would undoubtedly tell us that he’ll use his clout and seniority on the Ways and Means Committee to influence Chairman Rangel for a favorable outcome on the farm bill for North Dakota.  But one wonders how Earl is going to do that when he’s in Rep. Rangel’s pocket.

You see, since 2000 Earl Pomeroy has received $8,000 in political contributions from Rep. Rangel’s campaign fund and another $27,000 from Rangel’s National Leadership PAC.  Given that Rangel is one of Pomeroy’s biggest political benefactors, and that in general Pomeroy (like most North Dakota Democrats) receives the vast majority of his money from interests outside of North Dakota, one wonders how Pomeroy plans on serving North Dakota in Washington DC in anything but the most marginal of ways.

It’d be a lot easier to believe that Earl Pomeroy wields a significant amount of clout for North Dakontans in Washington DC if he were more beholden to actual North Dakotans for his political money than people who are not from North Dakota, and probably have never been here either.